His hair traced a soft line against my shoulder. Dek and Mal purred beneath his touch. Raw and Aaz dropped from their tree branch, landing softly on either side of me.
“It is awake,” he murmured.
I didn’t look at him. “What is?”
“Your heart.” Oturu glided away, floating on the tips of his toes. “Come, Tracker. We hunt the soldiers of the Aetar.”
Wait, I wanted to say to him. What did you mean?
But the demon did not linger. His knifelike feet pushed off the ground, and he ascended through the tree branches like a ghost, making not a sound. Tracker forced a sardonic smile to his mouth, but not before I glimpsed a troubled look in his eye.
“Hunter,” he said, simply, and vanished from sight.
I stared at the spot, heart beating a little too fast. Zee rasped, “Could have done without Tracker.”
“No.” I leaned against a tree, exhausted. “We need all the help we can get. One more pair of hands could make a difference.”
Or get him killed, too.
Maybe. And there was still one more body I needed to recruit into this fight. Another set of eyes.
I pulled out my cell phone, could barely read the screen—vision blurry, head dizzy. It was hard to find the number I needed. My fingers felt fat, clumsy. My skin was hot.
Rex answered on the third ring. For once, I was happy to hear his voice.
He’d been the first of Grant’s converts. A parasite who sided with my husband against his own Queen. Which didn’t mean he was my friend. Just the opposite. But he was loyal to Grant, and that was all that mattered.
I heard laughter in the background, pots clanging—the distant melody of a show tune: something from Phantom of the Opera. Dinner was being made at the homeless shelter Grant had founded—and that he and I had lived above, in his nice little loft. I felt homesick for the place.
“What now?” Rex asked.
“I need you to tap your parasite network,” I told him. “Find out if anyone has seen Aetar on this world, and where. I’m going to assume Blood Mama already knows the answer to this question and is just holding out on us.”
Rex was silent a moment. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “Find me some fucking Aetar, Rex.”
He grunted. “Bitch. I’ll call you back when I have something.”
“Thirty minutes. That’s all I’m giving you.”
He swore at me and ended the call. I tried to put the phone back in my pocket, but fumbled, clumsy. Zee caught it for me, but I didn’t try taking it back. I sat down hard on the ground, lying back and feeling my body ache. My hands settled on my stomach. I held them there, sending good thoughts to my daughter. Pretending she was surrounded in light. Anything that would protect her from the disease inside me.
“I need to find who did this,” I said to the boys. “Can you track? Is there a scent?”
They looked at each other. Raw had reached into the shadows for a figurine of Batman and was chewing on its head. Aaz also reached into the shadows, but he pulled out a footlong sandwich: thick crunchy bread spilling over with meatballs and melted cheese. He put it in my hands, and the bread was hot and the hunger that washed over me, hollow and immediate and dangerous. I hadn’t eaten anything for almost a day.
I tore into the sandwich, while Dek and Mal hummed with satisfaction. Zee rasped, “Felt a pull, in dreams. Old history. But not enough poison to make a path. Not enough to see behind the mask.”
I swallowed, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “So you needed to be more sick in order to track the source?”
Zee hesitated. “Like tracking a scent. Hunting memory. Some strong, some weak. Could eat poison, make sick, but won’t have same effect. Visions come from you. From healing you.”
I thought for a moment. “So . . . burning the poison out of my body . . . that connection between us is where you could track the disease’s origins?” I didn’t know how that worked, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. “What if I was . . . sicker?”
Dek and Mal squeaked. Raw’s jaws froze over Batman’s legs, which were sizzling and burning from the acid in his saliva. Aaz ripped a spike from his back and started stabbing himself in the eye with it.
“Okay, come on,” I said to him. “Now you’re just being dramatic.”
Zee was also staring at me. “Dangerous, Maxine. Risk much.”
I touched my stomach. If the Aetar won, what would the world look like? No demons, but no Grant, either. Maybe no humans, period. And Jack was right—they would never let our daughter live. Not with a Lightbringer’s powers.
They had almost killed her, still in the womb. After she was born, it would be even easier for the Aetar to take her life. Or just take her, period. There was only so much the boys and I could do to protect her.
Unless I took my own life. Gave her over to the boys as soon as she was born.
It had been done before. Still might not save her, but it was a better chance. Still meant, though, that someone would have to be around to take care of her during the day while the boys slept. Tracker had filled that role for one of my ancestors.
But I wanted my daughter to have her father.
Then what? No matter what you do, the Aetar will keep coming. They’ll send more soldiers, more sickness. Even if you save him now, Grant will never be safe. They’re too powerful, too elusive.
So, just give up, then? That couldn’t be the answer, either. Not with my daughter’s life on the line. Finding the one responsible for making the disease wouldn’t stop the Aetar, but it might lead to a cure. I had to start somewhere.
My appetite was gone, but I finished eating the sandwich. As soon as I took the last bite, Aaz placed another in my hands—only this one was stuffed with grilled salmon and avocado. I forced it down and drank the water the little demon gave me. Food helped. But I still had a fever, and my muscles ached.
My cell phone buzzed. Zee handed it back to me. “Hey.”
“Nothing,” Rex said immediately. “We haven’t seen anything.”
“Do you need more time?”
“No.” He sounded frustrated. “You’re right about us . . . we’re drawn to high-energy sources . . . and the Aetar are high-energy, even if we wouldn’t ever bother getting close to them. None of my kind has observed any Aetar.”
“That’s impossible. One of them possessed a dead Mahati and tried to kill my daughter.” Not to mention that Jack had told me he felt another on this world.
Rex went silent. I checked the phone to make sure he hadn’t hung up, and said, “Hello?”
“It’s started,” he said, in a dull voice. “We all knew it was just a matter of time. If the demon army didn’t kill this world, then it would be the Aetar.”
“Stop it,” I said. “Keep looking.”
“There’s nothing,” Rex snapped. “Not in Asia, not in South America, not in this country. I know, the world is a big place, but we would feel it. How do you think Blood Mama has kept tabs on your bloodline all these thousands of years? How come she always knows when shit’s about to hit the fan?”
I ignored that. “Have you tried Antarctica?”
“Fuck you,” he said. “I’ll call if anything changes.”
He hung up on me. I sagged against the tree and looked at Zee and the boys. I felt their dread—or maybe that was me.
“We can’t wait,” I said to them.
I struggled to my feet and walked through the woods to where the Mahati were being quarantined. No music, no soft chatter—a few small fires glowed in the camp, but I felt the absence of movement, a quiet that was heavy and full of dread.
I smelled the dying long before I saw them: a wet swamp of caustic, fetid blood that spread through the air in a deadly haze. The area had grown to accommodate more of the ill—at least another thirty adults and children—all sitting or lying still, curled up in balls with shallow wood pans by their heads to catch their vomit. Their sadness and fear was horrifying, heartbrea
king.
Lord Ha’an stood amongst them, holding water to the mouth of a child who lay limp in his arms.
“I’m finding a cure,” I told him. “I don’t care what it takes.”
He didn’t even blink. “What do you need?”
I looked around, found Zee crouched by an adult who looked pretty damn dead—if the slack, open-eyed, too-still expression of frozen horror was any indication. The little demon gave me a reluctant nod.
“That body,” I said. “I need some of its blood.”
“Then take it,” he told me. “Now it is only flesh.”
I crouched beside Zee. Raw and Aaz hopped close, clutching their teddy bears. Dek and Mal were absolutely silent around my neck. All of them unhappy, looking at me with concern.
“Maxine,” Zee rasped. “Unwise act.”
“Do you know a better way? Anything faster?”
He hesitated. “No.”
“And you’re sure you can draw the disease from me? That it won’t kill my daughter?”
“Yes.” No hesitation, that time.
I pointed to the Mahati’s arm, and the little demon slashed it open with his claws. Dark blood oozed free. I took several deep breaths, trying to shut out the world and the other Mahati, who were suddenly watching. I tried not to look at the dead demon’s slack face and staring eyes. I tried not to be sick.
Do it fast, I told myself. Don’t think.
But I did. I looked down at my stomach, pressing out against my jeans. Little girl in there. My baby.
I was terrified of fucking her up. Our bloodline was like titanium when it came to having healthy babies, but the trauma of that almost miscarriage was still rich and alive in my mind. Probably it always would be. I could feel the tug in my gut, the heat of blood between my legs. The helplessness.
I still felt helpless. In a million different ways.
There was one option I hadn’t tried. I pressed my right hand into the blood. The armor tingled, a shimmer of light racing over the metal—and with it, roses, ghosting to the surface, then fading. Each time I used the armor it covered more of my skin. In a few months, my entire right arm might be gone. Eventually, I’d have to stop. If I could.
Find the one who made this, I thought hard, closing my eyes. It might work. What the armor responded to had always been mysterious—and how it chose to fulfill my needs, even more so.
But when I tried to send us into the void, nothing happened. Seconds passed, a full minute, and we remained exactly in the same place, crouched by the same dead body, surrounded by the dying.
The only difference was that I heard screaming.
I began to stand—Zee caught my hand and shook his head. I turned, and found Lord Ha’an drawing near, still holding that sick demon child.
“The Shurik and Yorana are fighting,” he said, just as the screams grew more agonized.
“Doesn’t sound like the Yorana are winning.”
“The Shurik have always been the most dangerous of our kind. The Mahati would not have survived against them.” Lord Ha’an shrugged, looking totally unconcerned. “They are . . . friendlier . . . now. Even I can admit Lord Cooperon has been a good influence.”
The screaming ratcheted into a higher, more frenzied pitch—absolutely desperate.
“Great influence,” I muttered, thinking about what I’d said to that little Shurik on Grant’s shoulder. I glanced at Zee and the boys. “Should I stop it?”
Raw looked at me like I was crazy. Aaz just smirked, and Zee nibbled on the tip of his claw, giving me the most uncommitted shrug I’d ever seen. On my shoulders, Dek and Mal began patting my ears in a fast rhythm and hummed an upbeat version of the BeeGees’ “I’ve Got To Get A Message To You.”
Fine. No aid. I glanced down at the armor and clenched my hand into a fist. The blood had absorbed, but I was getting no cooperation. I wasn’t entirely surprised—just disappointed, frustrated. The armor had been constructed from a fragment of the Labyrinth, the stuff possibilities were made of. But that also meant it had a mind of its own, and sometimes—at the worst times—it liked to tell me, in its own silent way, to fuck off.
So, this was going to get dirty.
I took a deep breath, slid my left hand along that cut arm—and licked the blood off my fingers.
It was still warm. My first instinct was to gag, but I forced myself to lick again, and again, and something shifted inside me—that dark hunger, that caress of power rising from below my heart. But no pleasure came with that awakening. Only dissatisfaction.
We are not scavengers, whispered the darkness. We do not eat death.
We are death, I told it. And this is a different kind of hunt.
I sat back. I didn’t feel any different—except sick to my stomach. I couldn’t blame that on the immediacy of any disease, though. I was disgusted at myself. I wanted a toothbrush and a finger down my throat.
I wiped my mouth and looked at Zee. “Enough?”
His ears and hair lay flat against his skull; several of his claws pressed against his mouth like he was going to be sick. This, from the demon who had once eaten otherworldly intestines like spaghetti. “Maybe too much.”
“I trust you.” I reached out to grab Zee’s wrist. Raw and Aaz hugged my waist. “Follow the trail.”
“Need daylight,” Zee said. “Need to be one with you.”
“Got it,” I said.
But we weren’t going anywhere.
CHAPTER 16
NEVER take magic for granted. The minute you do, it will fuck you up.
I have some pride. What good it does me. When I realized I wasn’t going anywhere, I used my own two legs and walked the hell away from the quarantine zone. I avoided all Mahati. I trusted the boys to keep other demons away. I didn’t think too hard about where I was going. Only one place on this land where I felt truly safe—and the dead were there, too.
The earth on the hill had been torn during the battle: everywhere, chunks of dirt and grass, and deep holes. Some darts were still in the ground, and broken pieces of spears. I smelled blood. Or maybe that was my breath.
I was relieved to see the old oak still standing, untouched. We’d been on our way to the farmhouse when the giants attacked, and the creatures seemed to have bypassed this spot. The grass around my mother and grandmother’s grave didn’t even look scuffed—and the boulder that covered them was still in place. I climbed on top of its broad, flat surface. Lay on my back, staring at the stars.
Whatever I’d done had worked. Twenty minutes after taking that blood into my body, I felt sick as hell. Walking up the hill took all my strength, and just resting on this rock was making me breathe in ways that felt like my lungs were about to implode. My skin prickled worse than ever; and it was the fever, the burn, that hot lick of death settling in. I couldn’t believe how fast it was hitting me.
“I was stupid,” I said to Zee, who sat beside me, very still and quiet. “I got lazy.”
He said nothing. Raw and Aaz flopped down against my legs, dragging a six-pack of beer behind them, two tubs of fried chicken, and a small chain saw.
“M&M’s,” I said absently, and moments later, one of them put a large crunchy plastic bag in my hand, already open. I started popping chocolate. Dek and Mal slithered down my arms, and I fed them, too. Their purrs radiated heat.
“No Hunter has died of disease, right?” I asked the boys.
“Kill it in our sleep,” Zee rasped. “Only one old mother poisoned. Refused to listen.”
“Idiot.”
He sighed. “Hated us. Hated daughter. Hated all her old mothers. Tried to forget life. Tried with blood and war. Tried with strong drink. Could not kill herself, so let another.”
“How did her daughter respond?”
“Blamed us. Did not live long past own daughter. Better, after that.”
I bet. “When was this?”
Dek hummed, then chirped. Zee nodded at him. “Four thousand years. More than. Came by boat and foot across ice-north in wint
er. Walked down along coast. Walked for years. Walked into jungle. Walked into blood.”
Sick as I felt, that still made me smile. “So my ancestors came to this continent four thousand years ago, then rambled on down to South America?”
Zee shrugged. “Had time. No fear. When no fear, go places.”
Such true words. But I was envious of those women, envious that their world had been simpler.
“Nothing ever simple,” rasped Zee, so quietly I barely heard him. “Not death, even.”
I touched his head. “Do you ever wish you could die?”
Raw and Aaz stopped eating. Zee lay down beside me, curling close as the spikes of his hair flexed against my hand.
“Sometimes,” he whispered.
I ached for him. “Can you die?”
“All are mortal.” The little demon reached into the bag of M&M’s. “All.”
I swallowed hard, throat dry, skin blazing with fever. Tears burned my eyes. Shame, frustration, anger—all rolled through my heart, filling me up until I wanted to scream. I’d been so cocky. So sure of myself. Rushing headlong into danger because I assumed someone else would save me. Hadn’t I learned my lesson by now?
And it wasn’t just me I’d put at risk. That was the worst part.
“I’m afraid,” I told them. “I’m afraid for my daughter. I screwed up.”
Zee placed his claws on my chest, above my heart. “Last until morning. Fight.”
Fight. Yes, I could do that.
Fuck it all. I’m not going to die.
Five minutes later, I started vomiting blood.
DON’T take breathing for granted, my mother once said. Never say for sure that you’ll still be alive tomorrow.
I wasn’t sure I was going to be alive in an hour, and it wasn’t even midnight.
Zee held a cold bottle of water, and a wet rag that he used to dab my face. Raw had shoved a pillow beneath my head and knees, and Aaz was on my other side, rocking back and forth with a teddy-bear paw stuck in his mouth. Dek and Mal coiled beside my head, under my head, across my chest—absolutely silent.
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